RUSH: Bernie Sanders did a Facebook appearance last night in which — after the shooting of Scalise and others — Bernie Sanders is back at it encouraging his supporters to act in “unprecedented ways,” to fight back in every which way they can. You talk about tone deaf or you talk about having no concern about any of this. You talk about fueling the fire and throwing gasoline on it. Bernie Sanders has come along and done that, and he is gonna make it very tough. He had all these people stand up, “I’m not going to hold Bernie Sanders responsible for what that shooter did!” Well, Bernie is making the case that he might want to be linked to the guy even more closely than he already is.

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RUSH: Let’s get to Bernie Sanders here. We have a lot to get to today, and I want to try to get to as much of it as I can. This is Bernie Sanders. Remember, now, James Hodgkinson was Bernie’s biggest Facebook fan. When you read what Hodgkinson wrote in letters to the editor, when you read some of his other posts on Facebook, it’s clear that he was inspired by the words of Bernie Sanders. Nobody’s accusing Bernie Sanders of pulling the trigger. But I’ll tell you, folks, I hate this one-way street stuff.

You know, wherever there’s a mass shooting anywhere, the left wing — in their minds — is justified to start blaming anybody on the right for things they’ve done or said that nobody’s ever seen. And yet when there is perhaps a genuine linkage here between this guy’s mental state and media personalities and Democrat politicians? “Oh, we’re not saying that. We can’t go there! No, no, no. That’s very irresponsible. You can’t do that.” Well, maybe we can’t. You can, though, on the other end? And then people say, “Rush, this is not the way to fight this. This is just gonna continue the divide.”

I’m sorry, folks, it is the way to fight it. They’ve gotta be called out. They have got to be… You know, us turning the other cheek here has been going for I don’t know how many years, and it isn’t solving anything, and it isn’t changing anything. In the meantime, our culture continues to be debased. Our politics, everything! These people are politicizing virtually everything now, debasing everything. It’s gotta stop, and helping stop it requires being honest about what’s happened.

So here is Bernie during a Facebook Live event last night. He and Elizabeth Warren (the Fauxcahontas senator from Massachusetts) took questions from viewers, and during the Q&A one of the viewers named Mary said, “Senator Sanders, how do we fight or stand up to stop this proposed health care bill? How do we get it examined? How do we stop it? How can a citizen stop this bill in the Senate? What do we do?”

SANDERS: When I talk about a political revolution, this is what aim talking about. We gotta stand up and fight back! We have gotta be involved in the political process in a way that we have never been before! Because what is happening now in Washington is unprecedented. So you have got to, Mary, act in an unprecedented way. Think big! Get involved in every way that you can. So, Mary, stand up and fight back in every way that you can.

RUSH: I don’t know if this is tone deaf or is this just arrogance. I mean, what is it? I mean, we’re always being told that we need to practice more sensitivity. Well, where’s the sensitivity here? Congressman Scalise is still in the hospital undergoing continued treatment, maybe even more surgeries. He is improving and so forth. A number of other people were shot. And here’s Bernie arguably throwing more gasoline on the fire. Now, after Bernie made that statement, he and Fauxcahontas continued to discuss it.

SANDERS: Thousands of people will die! There’s no question in my mind. What kind of crazy world is it —

RUSH: What?

SANDERS: — where our Republican colleagues are so cowardly, are so frightful that the American people will learn what’s in their legislation, they refuse to have one hearing, one open discussion about it?

WARREN: I think it’s beyond cowardly. They know which side their bread is buttered on. They know what the Koch brothers want them to do.

RUSH: This is unbelievable. In the first place, Obamacare took place. There were no hearings. There were no congressional hearings, Senate hearings. There were no evenings and afternoons of testimony by experts explaining what various elements of Obamacare meant. All we have of Obamacare was a behind-the-scenes secret push to get it signed and passed via budget reconciliation, and then we had the president of the United States lying to the American people about it.

He lied about the costs. He lied about people being able to keep their doctors if they like them, keep their plan if they like them. Obamacare, there was an insurance company I think in Iowa, I forget the state, has now asked for a 43% rate increase to stay in one of the Obamacare exchanges, and I think it’s the only insurance company left in the state. And these people talk about thousands of people will die?

You know, you have an unbalanced person like James Hodgkinson and he’s driving around and he’s already filled with rage, and he’s already filled with hatred, he’s already filled with self-loathing. The guy’s got personal problems in his life. He can’t control himself. He’s undisciplined. He beats up people in his family. He is constantly enraged because that’s where his party has put him, that’s where the media has put him. The media puts him at rage and keeps him there. And Bernie Sanders comes along, “thousands of people will die.”

This is a recurring theme of the Democrats and the media, that Republican policies are going to kill people. And we’re told that we’re the ones that need to moderate. We’re told we’re the ones that need to tone it down. We’re the ones that need to keep a sense of balance. This claim about Republican policy has been made about the budget, about school lunch cuts that were phantom, that were never there.

The Republicans have been accused of wanting to kill senior citizens, of wanting to kill women, of wanting now to kill sick people. Thousands of people will die? Sorry. That is the epitome of irresponsibility. It is dangerous.

When you consider how many untold thousands of loyal Democrats are running around out there in a state of mental imbalance, teetering on the edge, and they continue to be told that not just a political party, but all the people that vote for that party are out to kill them, are out to destroy them, this is hand in hand what I was talking about yesterday.

Bernie Sanders cannot enter the arena of ideas in debate. He will lose. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, none of them can enter the arena of ideas and actually debate their ideas. They can’t defend their ideas. Their ideas don’t stand a chance if they are put forth and people are actually voting on them. So the Democrats have to destroy the credibility and the character and the lives of their opponents.

This is their primary political weapon.

They do not seek supremacy or primacy in their ideas, which is what most Americans think we’re in a battle of. Most Americans think politics is a battle of ideas. And in this battle of ideas, they hear the Democrats say that Republican ideas are gonna kill people. And they end up running around on the precipice of mental imbalance, scared to death over what is going to happen to them simply because the people they admire and trust are lying to them about these things. Senator Sanders chose to pile on a week after the shooting at the congressional baseball practice. Unfathomable.

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RUSH: So Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren last night on a Facebook Live session told people watching, “Republicans want to kill people. Republicans’ health care policies are gonna kill thousands of people!” Now if you’re running around, you’re a Democrat supporter, and you’re on the edge of mental stability — if you are mentally unstable and the people you trust and admire tell you that Republicans are gonna kill you — do you think it might expire you to go get a gun to protect yourself or maybe preemptively take them out?

This is irresponsible. Not only is it irresponsible; it isn’t true. That’s what makes this so horrible: It isn’t true. So much of what the Democrats claim and say — either about us or about their own policies — just isn’t true, such as climate change. None of it is true. I’ve never seen a political movement with so much of its existence built on so many foundations that are lies. And, by the way, it is Iowa that is demanding a 43% increase for insurance premiums, health insurance premiums to stay in Obamacare.

That’s 43%. Do you know during the debate on Obamacare (what limited debate there was) the Republicans were not even allowed in any meetings that were held? It was known the Republicans didn’t have the votes to stop Obamacare, so the Democrats didn’t even let the Republicans in the meetings — and Bernie wants to talk about a supposed bastardized process that’s going on now? This process is wide open. Everybody in the world can see what’s happening.

How about this hypocrisy? Here’s Otto Warmbier. So he goes to North Korea for whatever reason. He gets caught, put in prison, is mentally tortured, is basically killed, and they release him after a year and some months and he’s in a coma and he dies recently, and the left is out ripping Otto Warmbier. (Maybe it’s Warmbier.) But they’re ripping him. “He’s a white guy! He had no business there. Don’t you know it’s illegal to go to another country and steal their stuff?” No, it’s not. It’s not illegal in the United States to come in here and steal our stuff. Just ask the Democrat Party.

The Democrat Party and the media wants as many people to come into this country illegally as can, and whatever they take and whatever they can get their hands on, the media and the Democrat say it’s absolutely fine, that they deserve it because somehow we have discriminated against them. We’ve been mean to them in the past. We have stolen from them or whatever. But they are justified. So you can see come into the United States — if you’re illegal and you plan on voting Democrat, you can come in — and take whatever you want.

But Otto Warmbier goes to North Korea, and he deserves what he gets, because he’s an evil white American whose whiteness would not save him in North Korea. Not a single word of derision or criticism for the communist regime of Kim Jong-un. You will not find it in the American media today.

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RUSH: Stuart, Nebraska. Lindsey, great to have you. Welcome to the program. How are you?

CALLER: Good, Rush. Blessings on your family at this time.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

CALLER: I just wanted to draw that connection between liberal hatred and that arena of ideas you keep bringing up. With the whole Scalise shooting, the reason they feel they have to do this is because they can’t compete in the arena of ideas in any way, and so… Can you hear me?

RUSH: Yeah, I do.

CALLER: Okay. They turn to this hatred of people. They cannot compete. Like you hear that Sanders talking again on the Facebook live thing, I guess, is what you were talking about with Warren, and he talks about “resistance.” He doesn’t talk about policy. He talks about going out there and hating more.

RUSH: I know. It’s throwing gasoline on a fire that’s already burning out there —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — with no apparent sensitivity to what has happened.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Now are you saying that Hodgkinson also himself is unwilling to enter the arena of ideas so he grabs a gun? Was that your point?

CALLER: No. No, no, no. Well, you did say he was a policy wonk, yeah. I never looked at his Facebook page. I never looked at all the policy he had. I could say that I have hatred for those ideas. I have hatred for the far-left socialism. It’s bad for America. It’s bad for the world. But I never turn that hatred at people. So when you think about what the left’s doing now to Trump, it’s because they can’t compete in the arena of ideas. They have to do other things. They have to get him for obstruction of justice.

RUSH: You know, you may have a point here. It would depend on this whole concept of failing in the arena of ideas. I’m not aware… See, here’s the thing in the about that. To me, it’s obvious that they would rather not enter the arena of ideas. They don’t want to go there; they can’t. They know. It is my theory that they know that this country is not yet committed to Big Government socialism. There’s a sizable percentage of it that seems to be willing to go for it, but we’re not a majority oriented that way yet. Thus they know if they are honest…

Like Obama never campaigned on any of the things that he did. When he talked about health care he didn’t dare tell people what the real agenda was: Single payer with the government running everything. He had to lie about it. “If you like your doctor and if you like your health plan, nothing’s gonna change for you!” He had to lie that the whole point of it was simply to insure the poor people that didn’t have insurance. “That’s all we’re doing here! We’re just trying to equitable.

“We’re trying to sustainable, and we’re trying to be fair. It’s so wonderful! We’re gonna insure the uninsured.” Everybody else thought their health care was gonna be free because of the way they were selling it. But he didn’t dare tell people what the real agenda was. He didn’t dare tell people that his agenda was gonna transform America. He said, “We’re gonna transform the country,” but he didn’t tell them what that meant. He didn’t tell them that he had no respect for the founding of the country.

He didn’t tell them that he thought the country was unjust and illegitimate and immoral and needed to undergo great change. He didn’t tell them that he was gonna run around the world, start apologizing for all of America’s transgressions. They just can’t do it. Now, do they not do it because they are aware that they will lose in the arena of ideas, or do they do it because they… Well, it’s gotta be that. But wouldn’t that make you mad? If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool leftist, when you are one, you of course are also a total superiorist.

Every one of these people thinks that their system is infallible, unassailable, the absolute best. They have an arrogance and a condescension about their system, about their belief, about their ideology. Wouldn’t it make you mad that you couldn’t be honest about it in order to have it implemented? Wouldn’t it make you mad? Wouldn’t you have a deep resentment for the people that don’t see how brilliant you are and how brilliant it is? Whatever. Let me tell you something, folks. There is an inescapable observation and conclusion, and it is this.

You have to look very hard — and you have to spend a long time looking — to find a genuinely happy or content left-wing political person. Whether they’re an activist or not. If they’re engaged in any way, shape, manner, or form of politics, they’re not happy, no matter what. When they elected Obama, they got angrier. They got more enraged. After every success they have, nothing is ever enough. No amount much success ever makes them happy.

Every success they have seems to tell them how little they’ve actually done and how much more there is and how deeply resentful of that they are. The bottom line is: You just don’t encounter happy, laughing liberals. Even their comedians are consumed by hatred. The Democrat Party’s become the largest hate group in this country. Even their comedians are angry and enraged, and that suffices as comedy. I think it’s one of the reasons why left-wing comics have become primary sources of news for other left-wing liberals.

So there’s never any happiness, there never is any contentment. You don’t see any real laughter. You just see a constant level of rage — and I’m telling you, it isn’t healthy. Talk about sustainable? That cannot be sustained. A healthy mind and heart cannot be sustained by the degree of rage and hatred that we see in the American left today. You have to ask: Why don’t their successes make them happy? Look at what they’ve done in the area of marriage. They’ve totally upended it.

They have succeeded in not just redefining a word that has stood for however many number of years — tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years — that humans have been plodding and walking the earth. And even after they succeed with this, they get angry. They don’t ever seem satisfied. It’s the most amazing thing. And we’re all paying the price for it, this constant rage, this constant anger. They lose elections, and it is taken as one of the most outrageous things that could happen.

David Horowitz has a good piece about the mind-set of the modern leftist. I want to try to get to that today, too. Let me come back from a break. When we come back, I’m gonna get to another bit of evidence via Frank Luntz focus groups about how when you leave Washington and get out into America, you find all kinds of popularity and approval for Donald Trump. And it stuns and shocks all of these inside-the-Beltway types when they see it. They cannot believe it. That’s how far removed they are.